Method and system for performing outer loop power control in discontinuous transmission mode

A system for controlling unnecessary power increases and call drop during discontinuous transmission (DTX) mode of a framebased transmission system said system comprising:

• means for evaluating at a receiver end of said transmission system a status of a transmitted frame, said status indicating one of two possible transmission modes including (1) when a gating-off of traffic occurs at the source, and (2) when no gating-off of traffic occurs and normal traffic is being transmitted, wherein said evaluating means includes:
• means for calculating a ratio of a traffic signal-to-noise (SNR) value to a SNR of a power control bit (PCCB) over a frame period, wherein said traffic SNR and said PCB SNR are from a same frame when said frame is a dedicated control channel (DCCH) frame or a fundamental channel FCH) frame, and wherein when said frame is a supplemental channel (SCH) frame, said traffic SNR is obtained from said SCH frame and said PCB SNR is obtained from a corresponding DCCH or FCH frame;
• means for establishing a threshold value correlated to a point above which said ratio indicates a frame with traffic is being transmitted;
• and
• means for comparing said ratio with said threshold;
• and
• means for controlling a change in said target bit energy to noise spectrum density ratio (Eb/No) in response to said evaluating means, wherein a target Eb/No is not increased when said evaluating step indicates a gating-off of traffic has occurred.

A method for controlling transmission power in a CDMA system, said method comprising:

• evaluating a ratio of a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of traffic within said transmission with a SNR of a power control bit of said transmission to determining whether the traffic channel is gated off;
• adjusting a power level of a subsequent transmission based on the result obtained from said evaluating step;
• wherein said evaluating step includes calculating a decision variable as a ratio of said SNR of said traffic and said SNR of said power control bit(PCB), wherein said traffic SNR and said PCB SNR are from a same frame when said frame is a dedicated control channel (DCCH) frame or a fundamental channel (FCH) frame, and wherein when said frame is a supplemental channel (SCH) frame, said traffic SNR is obtained from said SCH frame and said PCB SNR is obtained from a corresponding DCCH or FCH frame;
• and
• wherein said adjusting step comprises comparing said decision variable with a pre established threshold, wherein a result of said comparison is utilized to determine whether to increase power or decrease power within said subsequent transmission.